In the brutal aftermath of this last week of politics, on Thursday, the 43rd parliament's final day, Rob Oakeshott gave his valedictory speech.

Oakeshott is a decent man, who took seriously the position of power he found himself in after the 2010 election and exercised it with care and thoughtfulness.

He proved his decency again, in my view, when he revealed that the night before, shortly before the leadership ballot Julia Gillard already pretty much knew she would lose, he had texted her to say he thought her father would be proud of her.

It was of course a reference to the disgusting comment by radio announcer Alan Jones, speaking at a young Liberals fundraiser shortly after John Gillard's death, when he said that Gillard's father must have "died of shame".

It brought Gillard close to tears. She was in the chamber at the time to hear Oakeshott's speech – for the first time again as a backbencher. I tweeted it, with #decency. And someone immediately tweeted back "oh for God's sake".

It was just one person, but I was dumbfounded. Whatever you thought of the prime minister, whatever you thought of the decisions Oakeshott had taken, the sheer nastiness of Jones's original remark and the poignancy of Oakeshott's text left me wondering at the cynicism.

And it's by no means a one-off – on Twitter, or in the comment threads of news sites, or in general political debate. Which kind of proves Oakeshott's next point.

"The fringe has invaded the mainstream," he said. "The nation needs to deal with it, this parliament needs to deal with it."